Clockwise from top left, Kyle Richards uses a tablecloth as a tissue when she breaks down with co-star Lisa Vanderpump on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills; Lindsay Autry waits as Paul Qui struggles with a creative competition on Top Chef; Bob Harper comforts Emily Joy on The Biggest Loser; Michael Costello loses it before judging on Project Runway.

Clockwise from top left, Kyle Richards uses a tablecloth as a tissue when she breaks down with co-star Lisa Vanderpump on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills; Lindsay Autry waits as Paul Qui struggles with a creative competition on Top Chef; Bob Harper comforts Emily Joy on The Biggest Loser; Michael Costello loses it before judging on Project Runway.

In fact, crying is not only ubiquitous but mandatory. When you pay to play, tears are currency. The question is no longer whether to cry but rather, "What kind of crying will maximize camera time?"

We've been watching paid weepers for years on television, in a wide variety of programming from The Biggest Loser to The Ultimate Fighter.

In his wide-ranging account Crying: A Natural and Cultural History of Tears, Tom Lutz considers the mysterious universality of tears. He argues that "our best understandings of tears come not from the medical and physiological sciences but from innumerable poetic, fictional, dramatic and cinematic representations."

Thank goodness we can add "televisual" to the list. But in a reality age saturated with sobbing, what kinds of tears can be found, and what are they really worth?

Before we get to the hard-core blubberers, we should start with a salute to the subtle virtuosos of what we like to call "clean crying." Why bother with the fuss and mess of actual tears when you can simply mime along?

On a recent episode of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the former-actress and restaurateur Lisa Vanderpump got choked up on a beach in Hawaii when castmate Taylor Armstrong called to share news of her impending divorce. Lisa's chin trembled, and she sniffled mightily while looking at a gorgeous expanse of sea. Miraculously, her mascara remained intact despite the tragedy unfolding in faraway Beverly Hills.

Big boys cry, too, and America loves to watch.

It seems men prefer to weep over competitive endeavors rather than romance. Failure or unbridled success will always excuse tears. Aspiring fashion designer Michael Costello's extraordinary bawl-binge on Season 8 of Lifetime's Project Runway is a certain milestone in the special crying category of "Gentlemen Only."

"I lost my cool, oh yes, I did," Costello admitted weeks later in a video diary. Truth be told, we fell for it, and our heart went out to him. His inability to command the top prize seemed the denouement to a lifelong trail of tears, starting with his first childhood bully and leading to the final runway. Costello had a judgmental family back home to disappoint, and he amplified his season-finale jag with angry wall punches and a well-timed pout in the corner. He'll be his own hard-act-to-follow on the new Project Runway All-Stars, and fans are waiting for a new flood of tears.

You might be thinking that as a fashion designer, Costello is given to histrionics. But his lachrymose episode seems almost tame next to the heart-rending sobs of the aspiring young athletes on The Ultimate Fighter

Let's be reasonable. When these young men lose, they are losing a lucrative contract. You can find crying montages readily on YouTube. Andy Wang, lovingly referred to as "The Crying Warrior," is a role-model. He cried in the ring, on the way to the dressing room and let his tears build into a prize-winning performance.

Bravo's latest installment in the world of styling, It's a Brad Brad World, had its central figure crying four times in just the first two episodes. The emotional Brad Goreski lets it flow when things are going well, such as winning his first assignment from Details magazine. From the way his eyelids flutter and stir up the saline minutes before actual tears flow, it's obvious he's practiced.

Clearly, crying is an art, nowhere more so than in creative competitions from Top Chef and Work of Art to America's Next Top Model. You know how those artistic types are.

Take the aspiring runway stompers of America's Next Top Model. The show quite consciously creates sobbing interludes with make-overs gone wrong, photo shoots with furry spiders or at great heights, and intimate confessions on national television. Perhaps Tyra Banks should bottle "model teardrops" and sell them as a fragrance called Unrealized Promise.

The fiery Arrington Nyesha may have barked, "There's no crying in cooking" when the talented if shaky Beverly Kim welled up several times during a recent episode of Top Chef: Texas But it was Houston-born Sarah Grueneberg who has shown a tendency to sob about her family and hardships while treating others with outrageous rudeness. Tears are a weapon: Watch where you aim them.

Love hurts, and nowhere recently has it seemed to pierce so sharply to the quick as on ABC's The Bachelor Whether she's confronting contestants or getting the boot from bachelor Ben Flajnik, 27-year-old blogger Jenna Burke just can't stop crying. Burke seems to have perfected that special kind of heaving, guttural sob that makes you wonder if someone should call a doctor.

The most uncomfortable crying was on the second season of Bravo's Work of Art, when the quickly eliminated Kathryn Parker Almanas unleashed a torrent of heaving sobs that were primal in their intensity. Even she was caught by surprise, saying to the judges, who all looked down in shame, "This is embarrassing."

YouTube features several video loops of Kathryn crying over and over again. Isn't once enough? Why do we love such scenes?

Interestingly enough, NBC's weight-loss phenomenon The Biggest Loser somewhat answers that question. It shows the most moving scenes of crying, the real gems in a reality world of crocodile tears. Imagine the shock to the system: Your body shape, body image and body chemistry all go haywire in the furious attempt to achieve better health. No wonder there are tears.

We suspect most people like crying scenes because they relieve the burden of crying for oneself. Or misery loves company. Regardless, it sure is easier to sit on a couch and watch.